2 Peter 1:21

2 Peter 1:21 ‘for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.'

‘For' -Which defines ‘who' is under consideration in the statement, ‘one's own interpretation'. The readers of Scripture are not under consideration, rather, the prophets themselves.

‘no prophecy' -Contrary to the claims of such groups as the Jesus Seminar, we cannot take the Bible and divide it up into what is God's word and what is human speculation or human addition. Whatever is found in the Scriptures has been recorded accurately!

‘was ever made by an act of human will' -‘will, choice' (Thayer p. 285); ‘subjective, will, the act of willing or desiring, by an act of human will' (Arndt p. 354) ‘The prophets did not make up what they wrote…It is interesting that in this, perhaps the fullest and most explicit biblical reference to the inspiration of its authors, no interest should be displayed in the psychology of inspiration. The author is not concerned with what they felt like, or how much they understood, but simply with the fact that they were the bearers of God's message.' (Green p. 91 ‘Clark puts it, “Isaiah did not get out of bed one morning and say, ‘I have decided to write some prophecies today..'”' (Lucas/Green p. 83)

‘but men moved by the Holy Spirit' -‘Moved'-‘to be conveyed or borne' (Thayer p. 650); ‘to bear, carry, they were “borne along” or impelled by the Holy Spirit's power, not acting according to their own wills or simply expressing their own thoughts, but expressing the mind of God in words provided and ministered by Him.' (Vine p. 89) ‘He says they were moved, not because they were out of their minds (as the heathen imagine…in their prophets), but because they dared nothing by themselves but only in obedience to the guidance of the Spirit.' (Green p. 92)

‘spoke from God' -God was the source of the message and not themselves. The concepts and the words which revealed those concepts were both given and chosen by God (1 Corinthians 2:9; Haggai 1:13; Jeremiah 2:17; Exodus 2:12).

Points to Note:

We must reject the theory that God gave the concept, but allowed the writers to express that concept in their own words: 1. If man could accurately express. concept, then why did God have to reveal the concept in the first place? 2. Jesus believed that everything in the text was the Word of God (Matthew 5:17). And even made an argument based on the tense of. word in the Scriptures (Matthew 22:29). In like manner, Paul based an argument upon whether. word in the Old Testament text was singular, instead of plural (Galatians 3:16). 3. Another proof of verbal inspiration is that the prophets didn't fully understand or comprehend everything they were recording (1 Peter 1:10).